陶溪川艺术中心 | 艺术家：SEVİNÇ KÖSEOĞLU ULUBATLI

Sevinc was born in Turkey. She received her BFA (2005) and PhD (2019) degrees from Hacettepe University- Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Ceramics and Glass, which is well-known in art education in Turkey. She received her MFA in Ceramics Education in Fine Arts from Gazi University in 2013.

Sevinc has been an academician at the university since 2006. She currently works as an associate professor at Ankara Music and Fine Arts University, one of the two universities in Turkey that only focuses on fine arts.

Her works are exhibited in the permanent collections of official and private institutions, especially in America, Argentina, Romania, Turkey, and China. She participated in more than 30 ceramic workshops and symposiums as an invited artist and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions.  She also held 7 personal ceramic exhibitions, the last of which was in Jingdezhen, and won 7 international awards, including the highest award given by the Republic of Turkey in the field of ceramics.

One of the most important activities carried out by the artist was the ceramic installation and video exhibition titled “MIGRATION”, which addressed the journey of human beings who took to the road in search of a better life, questioned the concept of migration and was shot in four different cities and locations, and took more than 2 years to complete.

During my 4-month residency program, you can see the intercultural interaction in my works: Combining second-hand materials purchased from the Jingdezhen antique market, using symbols such as the bamboo tree and the lotus flower, which are very important in Chinese art, poems written with the beauty of calligraphy, the meeting of glass art with the ceramic body and lastly, the existence of the signs from Year of the Dragon.

Between 2008 and 2010, I worked as an international visiting artist at the Ceramics Department of Harvard University in the USA, working in the same environment with world-renowned ceramic artists such as Magdalene Odundo, an important American artist in the field of ceramics and especially public sculpture such as Nancy Selvage, Japanese artist Sueharu Fukami, an expert in Celadon Glaze, Japanese artists Kusakabe Masakazu, with whom I worked on the Smokeless Anagama Kiln construction project, Regis Brodie, and Taiwanese artist Pao-Fei Yang, an expert in firing techniques. This experience has opened the door to the limitless creativity of the international art community.

Again, in the same way, while getting to know a new culture in a professional working environment in China- Jingdezhen Taoxichuan Art Center- International Studio, I am returning to my country with full satisfaction in ceramic creation. Sharing the same environment with European, American and Asian artists from all over the world helped me to better communicate with clay and each day repeated itself in a different but same routine. I can pass on to my students and fellow artists a great wealth of ceramic world, thanks to the comprehensive experience that I have gained here.

Working with ceramics is a tool for me to express my feelings and thoughts. I don’t intent to create an admirable classical work of art. As a contemporary ceramic artist, I like to use ceramics as a field of discourse and work on topics that will create social awareness. Beyond the pleasant, I choose a topic that the viewer will stop and think about for a moment, perhaps even confront, such as the place of women in society, worthlessness, the concept of homelessness and the phenomenon of migration, the cycle of life and the future of nature, and never-ending hope, sometimes thought-provoking and sometimes hopeful stories. Even in your darkest moments there is always a seed of hope.

Everyone knows Jingdezhen, the capital of ceramics, is the birthplace of blue and white porcelain the world-known history of China's ceramic art... An incredible country, an amazing city. At the end of the unforgettable 4 months, I spent in a wonderful residency program among skilfull ceramic artists from all over the world. This is a dream-like experience in my ceramics career...That's why the name of my exhibition is “Beyond the BLUE”.

Our routines in the rush of daily life, emotions that we don’t even realize and feelings we sometimes face. Emptiness within us, farewells, loneliness. But despite everything, the endless hope within a person… In other words, the voice of our troubles, the interpretation of our hopes… New stories that pass through the filter of life with the sensitivity of an artist and find their embodiment in a ceramic body. 

Bamboos come to life in cobalt blue on porcelain that dazzles with its elegance. The meeting of the lotus flowers fascinates with its light permeability with the elegance of a woman. And Dragon's call to women: “Always pursue a strong and uptrend life like the dragon. Face the challenges and inspire everyone”.

Nature has a cycle that renews itself despite everything... A cycle that contains new hopes such as rebirth...Also, a woman, who is the representative of rebirth for humanity, is a partner of this cycle as the herald of hope. While the white used in this installation sequence represents the routine of our lives, the blue, which is the representative of the sky and the earth, represents the hope in this routine.

When I visited "Sanqingshan Global Geopark of China", I saw the Breast Shaped Rock and was inspired by this miracle of nature to make Queen off the Mountains... The mystery in nature always whispers something to us... we just have to try to hear it.

Fragility is in human nature. Whenever there is a gap that fragility continues to grow, and grow, and grow, until one day it comes out. Maybe fragility is an illusion that we create in our minds. (The glass was made by Brazilian glass artist Cristine Baena)